The tale of Tamīm b. ʿAmmār: a ninth-century Jew from the Hijaz

Abstract

Haggai Mazuz’s article “The tale of Tamīm b. ʿAmmār: a ninth-century Jew from the Hijaz,” presents the reader with a Genizah manuscript containing the story of Tamīm b. ʿAmmār al-Ḥijāzī, a ninth-century Jew who lived in the Hijaz region of the Arabian Peninsula. The document tells about two meetings between Tamīm and the Abbasid caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 786-833). Tamīm was in charge of the transfer of taxes from Egypt to the Caliph in the first third of the ninth century and commanded a force that secured convoys. This is a unique source for this story and it enriches our knowledge about the Jews of the Hijaz after the advent of Islam and the role they played in the Muslim world in the first centuries after the hijra. A transliteration of the document and its translation by Yaara Perlman is appended to the article.